The Inseverability of the Tea Party

I finally got around to watching this Intelligence Squared debate over the motion “The GOP must seize the center or die,” with David Brooks and Mickey Edwards arguing for, Laura Ingraham and Ralph Reed against. Their arguments will be familiar to most, the former arguing the party has become too extreme, alienating growing demographic groups, the latter that standing on principle is the way to success and moderates lost just as badly as conservatives in the last election.

The numbers paint an interesting picture of how the Republican Party’s problems are both more intractable than many realize and misperceived by most. Before the debate, 14 percent voted against the motion, afterward, 28 percent did, whereas the percentage of people voting for the motion remained at 65 percent, meaning the side opposed to the motion changed more minds, and won.

The biggest weakness in Brooks and Edwards’ argument is that they see the Tea Party as a fringe group dragging the party rightward and toward electoral oblivion. But a new study out this week shows that isn’t the case; those people are the Republican Party’s base—73 percent of Republicans who attended a rally were members of the Tea Party. The main differences between today and ten years ago are that they trust the party’s leadership far less, with 23 percent rejecting the party label entirely. Abby Rapoport elaborates on the ideological gap:

But the gap between the two groups is huge. In the YouGov survey the study uses, more than two-thirds of Tea Partiers put themselves in the two most conservative categories on economic policy, social policy, and overall policy. Only 23 percent of non-Tea Partiers place themselves in the most conservative categories on all three issues; nearly 40 percent don’t locate themselves in the most conservative categories for any of the three policy areas.

Most jarring: On some issues, like abolishing the Department of Education and environmental regulation, the establishment Republicans are actually closer to Democrats than they are to the Tea Party respondents. That’s a gap too large to be overcome by a few political action committees and gestures of goodwill.

Today that gap is playing out in everything from healthcare policy to minor votes in the House. It’s no doubt exacerbated by outside groups picking fights for donor-related reasons, but the problem would still be there in their absence.

To some extent the party is reaping what it’s sown; its reputation for fiscal prudence was deservedly squandered by a Republican administration that oversaw the invasion of two Middle Eastern countries, an attempt to buy the senior vote, and a bailout of the big banks. But there’s a bigger problem baked into the origins of the conservative movement. In The Conservative Movement (the book!) Paul Gottfried characterizes how neoconservatives learned to love the welfare state as having gotten off the train of democratic progress at a certain point and deeming all who’ve gone beyond feckless liberals, and all who disembarked before as hopeless reactionaries. Conservative intellectuals and party elites thought they could dictate where that point ought to be, and now they’re finding out how wrong they were.

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27 Responses to The Inseverability of the Tea Party

Fifty years back, Clinton Rossiter profiled all elements of the right in *Conservatism in America*. The folks that were then considered, both by Establishment Republicans and old-line Conservatives, as “ultra-conservatives” (ultras at best, nut-jobs at worst), were way out on the fringe (often characterized as “the lunatic fringe”. Today, those “ultras” and “loons”, have become the center of the Republican Party.
Whether hard-line intransigence can be translated into election victory across the board is highly problematical. Only (so says the conventional wisdom) due to the last round of gerrymandering have the Republicans been able to hold onto the House. If that is the case, the 2020 census might handthe party a few unpleasant surprises, especially if the more uncompromising factions are in control.
Or not.

Remember the doctrine of Margaret Thatcher. She refused to move to the “center” of British politics. Instead she insisted on crafting a party which would bring the center of the British electorate to it.

Trying to seize the “center” of the American electorate is like trying to seize a chimera. When you succeed in taking the “middle ground” you find your hands are empty. “Centrist” politicians are seen as unprincipled politicians, and the only thing worse is one is who is overtly corrupt. The secret to winning politics is coalition building – the cobbling together of different interest groups with different but compatible objectives who band together with the agreement to support one another’s goals for government. Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan are remembered as America’s most successful politicians because they did precisely this. FDR brought together Northern labor, Western farmers and Southern aristocracy – groups without anything else in common, but who stuck together until the Civil Rights Era and the rise of elite intellectuals in the Party brought their objectives into collision. Reagan brought together anti-communists, social conservatives and free marketeers. The end of the Cold War and the refusal of that party’s intellectual elite to defend social conservatism brought that coalition down.

I have thought for some ten years that the future of the Republican Party lies in a new “federalism” – a party bound to reduce the national government to its Constitutional minimum, resulting in a much reduced legal code and bureaucracy, but also bound to allow the states full leeway to legislate, or not, the “social morality” – left or right wing – of their choice. The goal would be to bring back to the GOP those who drifted off to the Libertarian and Constitution Parties and those who left politics altogether from the same frustrations – those which might be labeled this generation’s “Silent Majority”.

Ron Paul appeared to me to be the man best equipped to forge this coalition, but the establishment of the Republican Party was too wedded to the “welfare-warfare State” to accept him or his philosophy because that is how they derive their wealth. If our government’s policy of military adventurism and free money ever causes the nation’s economy to collapse, as Paul and his brain trust have long predicted, the libertarian-paleocon coalition will quickly become a majority and will no longer be silent.

Must disagree with using Thatcher as a model or analogy for today’s American advocates of more limited government. Demographic changes have irrevocably and drastically changed the electorate and culture in the UK and the US to which Thatcher and Reagan were able to appeal.

But I LOVE LOVE LOVE your idea of making federalism — States’ rights, local control — a main issue for the GOP. We should be pushing hard for the repeal of all federal “laws” in areas where the Constitution does not expressly authorize the feds to act, including abortion, drug policy, marriage, speed limits, seat belt and helmet laws, the drinking age, education, domestic relations, etc.

Whether “left” or “right” or something else, it is the people of each State who have the Tenth Amendment right to decide the law and policy in every such area.

It depends what a person means by “the center” ,which is subjective. I haven’t watched the video yet, but I’m pretty sure that the David Brooks “center” is different from the Mickey Edwards “center,” though there are similarities. David Brooks is a typical socially liberal RINO moderate. But Mickey Edwards is a mainstream conservative former Oklahoma congressman who wrote a book called The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans. I haven’t read his book, but I’ve read about it. The book is about bringing both parties, not just the Republicans, to the center and ending the political dysfunction and gridlock that has paralyzed Washington. Edwards and other mainstream conservatives like him, primarily want to move to the center on economic and fiscal issues, though this could also include some social issues like the gun debate. David Brooks and other moderates like him, also want to move to the center on social issues and to a lesser extent on foreign policy.

Moving to the center does not mean giving up your principles but finding common ground with others on important issues. It means bringing your principles with you, but leaving your ideology at the door. The Politico article about political intransigence in the House that Jordan Bloom links to in the first to last paragraph is about the political fights between Boehner and Cantor on one side and the Tea Party Caucus on the other side. I’m pretty sure that Boehner and Cantor are a lot closer to the Mickey Edwards “center” than they are to the David Brooks “center.” The Mickey Edwards “center” is also a lot closer to the majority of Republicans than is the David Brooks “center.”

“Constitutional minimum” is a nice, vague phrase. Does it include Social Security, Medicare, FDIC insurance of bank accounts, etc, etc? If so, you are going to have to acknowledge that the “constitutional minimum” has changed a lot since the Constitution was adopted. If not, well, good luck with that.

The Republicans lost 2012 because the Tea Party forced them into positions which were simply at odds with facts and basic governance. These positions are not “principled,” but radically ideological stands against reality:

- Refusal to grapple with the crippling cost of healthcare (they should have come up with a real alternative to ObamaCare).

- Refusal to acknowledge that both cuts to spending – including Defense – and tax increases must take place to fix the debt.

- Refusal to acknowledge that there really is a major and growing split between wealthy elite and the masses, and how that destabilized societies. Instead they called such concerns “class warfare.”

- Refusal to acknowledge, and mockery of, Climate Change.

- Refusal to denounce neo-con foreign policy disasters, and in some instances demanding more of them, like bombing Iran.

- Refusal to engage in pretty much basic governance and bringing us to the brink on the debt ceiling, thwarting even the most innocous of Obama’s appointments, etc.

Generally the Tea Party-controlled GOP has waged war on the American process of governance – even reality – and its core is a primal cultural shriek against our changing world and America’s place in it. We are witnessing the rump end of a once great conservative movement. They remind me of the angry and hyper-ideological liberal radicals of the late ’70s.

The GOP lost because social conservativism as a model of legislation is a losing proposition and because economically they have completely lost their way- you can’t be a fiscal conservative while expanding the welfare state and squandering American blood and treasure in foreign land.

““Constitutional minimum” is a nice, vague phrase. Does it include Social Security, Medicare, FDIC insurance of bank accounts, etc, etc? If so, you are going to have to acknowledge that the “constitutional minimum” has changed a lot since the Constitution was adopted. If not, well, good luck with that.”

Details, details!

The Roman Empire wasn’t built in a day, and the American Empire won’t be taken down as quickly. Hopefully, we can do so less violently.

Social Security and Medicare are two of the biggest draws on the U.S. Treasury and need to be spun off as the first order of business. The FDIC and other underpinnings of the banking and commercial systems may be unraveled more slowly, although we need to take “money” away as something economists and politicians can print and play with.

I would recommend more use of the “Compact Clause” as a way that many government responsibilities, today run by Congress and the President, can be spun off into state control and direction. The important thing is to reduce the power that has been invested in Washington, so that the people who govern our military forces aren’t the same as those who set our monetary policy aren’t the same as those who provide assistance to the poor, the sick and the aged aren’t the same as those who decide whether to recognize gay marriages or make abortion legal. We’ll know we gotten close to the Constitutional minimum when the amount of money donated to Congressional and Presidential campaigns is exceeded by that donated to candidates for state offices, when being a Member of Congress is no longer treated as a full time job, and when the President is no longer required to carry a retinue of bodyguards and sycophants whereever he goes, nor must all traffic be stopped whenever he comes to town.

Early Bird is spot on. Once the GOP left fiscal and political restraint behind as old fashioned and embraced the social conservatives (or vice versa); being a minority party was assured. Tax cuts for “job creators”, sneering at conservation, the right to own an AK-47, anti-same gender rights, the battle over abortion, “freedom fries”, etc., etc. The Grand Old Party is no longer Grand.

The problem with the Republican Party is that they have not played up social conservatism (the beauty of vibrant local communities and culture) and instead have talked about economic neoliberalism. This economic neoliberalism is against fiscal conservatism. How can you seriously talk about cutting deficits while cutting taxes?

Early Bird is sparring with a liberal created image of the Tea Party – a straw man. The real Tea Party, starting with its inception with the Ron Paul “Moneybomb” in 2007, was a clear-eyed movement grounded in the principles of liberty and small government, not this caricature. Now that the forces of the GOP establishment, which tried to hijack the Tea Party label for their own ends, have withdrawn, the central core of the movement is again taking charge.

The central source of the burgeoning cost of health care is Federal Spending – Medicare, Medicaid, Part D, and now Obamacare. By a simple application of the law of supply and demand one can see that the primary cause of skyrocketing prices for health care is the Federal money pouring into the system without an equivalent increase in the supply of medical goods and services. So, yes, today we have come to the point where everyone but the very wealthy requires assistance to afford medical care. Cut off the spigot coming from Congress, and the prices charged for medical care will decline to what the market will bear – just as they do in Mexico, Turkey and other countries where “medical tourists” from the U.S. go for their major operations.

Cuts in Defense spending, indeed, cuts in what we expect to do with military power abroad, is priority number one for today’s Tea Party. See William Lind’s article posted just today on this website.

Class warfare was something fought by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. The Tea Party, few of whom are high rollers, have no truck with class envy and no dog in that fight. They only want the rich to live off of their own wealth – not that of the taxpayers. The end to corporate welfare is another high priority.

Climate changes – no one sensible denies the fact. The debate is whether the government, through taxes and regulation, can do anything to improve the situation. If the proposal is to force spending, through sticks and carrots, on reducing carbon emissions by industries in competition with factories abroad not laboring under the same burdens, the answer is, “Not much, and not at a cost we can afford.” The adjustments we must endure as the world climate changes may be as much or less as the alarmists predict, but wise leaders will prepare our country to adapt to such changes as they come – not fight an expensive battle, destined to be lost, to change the mind of Mother Nature. The world’s population is not going down. Carbon emissions will not be going down. Unless we initiate World War III, we have to learn to live with both.

You are right – the foreign policy of America running the world, conducted by Democrats and Republicans alike, has come a cropper. That has been the constant theme of The American Conservative and those leaders it has given a platform to for more than a decade. No more has been done to advance the cause of change, which must come from outside the two party establishment, than by those who work to elect candidates like Rand Paul, Justin Amash, Thomas Massie and the others of like mind who are being recruited to join them. From my vantage point I would say most of that work is being done by the folks at Freedomworks and others who identify with the Tea Party movement. That movement is not perfect and not all who identify with it are consistent, but I don’t see a better vehicle on the political landscape today to hold politicians’ feet to the fire to effect the radical changes in the U.S. government which must occur if both the Union and our liberties are to survive.

This debate doesn’t mean much in light of the fact that Republican politicians are for sale to the highest bidder. If either party would renounce corruption and instead govern on behalf of the people it would control the government for generations. But there is no money in that.

The blue sheep and the red sheep are being led to slaughter. They will likely still be debating ideology in the concentration camps. Americans must unite in the cause of liberty, justice and the rule of law. We once had the luxury of quibbling over social issues. Not any more. It’s not about big or small government. It’s about government by consent of the governed.

Should Mr. Dalton’s description of the Tea Party be accurate, I’d be the first to applaud it. I hope it is.

Unfortunately, at least as shown in the past two national elections and the common national conversation, the Tea Party seems to be just a reactionary movement which fits the left caricature of it, wanting to either freeze the world in the Reagan Era, or go back further. Alas, much of the nuance found in think tanks (of any stripe) seems to get pared out by the time regular citizens digest it.

” First, there is clearly growing tension between the Tea Party and the national security hawks/neocons. Many Tea Party members exhibited more opposition than did typical Democrats to the Obama administration’s escalation in Afghanistan, war in Libya and the Patriot Act extension, and they have been increasingly vocal about demanding cuts in military spending.”

While excessive government spending in the Healthcare market is a contributing factor in the excessive rise in healthcare costs, let us not forget that in the US market, as opposed to say Canada or Germany or many other nations with universal coverage rests in two additional areas.

1. The litigious environment of american society, where anyone can sure their doctor for just about any reason, requiring ever increasing malpractice premiums to be included in the cost of doing business as a doctor.

2. That because we have to buy insurance (not by force, but out of necessity) the patient is not the primary customer of the health practitioner, rather it is the insurer who covers the costs. Thus, as a health consumer I cannot freely negotiate rates, choose a specific doctor, and doctors are not free to define courses of treatment outside of the framework of what their lawyers, and the insurance companies’ claims adjusters say. Thus administrative costs in the US are excessive, and third parties, with considerable profit motives and defining prices and payment schedules, which leaves the patient out in the cold, or in debt most of the time.

These are significant structural problems, which not only drives higher than average cost increases, but also impacts the flexibility of the employment market, as the ability to obtain affordable health coverage is often directly related to full-time employment, which limits salaries and limits individual choice in the job market.

With regard to the Tea Party and its members. While it is true that there are certainly members, or those who associated themselves as such, who are thoughtful, libertarian leaning conservatives, many of those who I know personally, seem to live in some sort of fantasy world, where we should cut taxes, and start more wars, and increase social security and medicare (because they are entitled to it). They are convinced that is we just eliminate food stamps, foreign aid (except for isreal), and funding for PBS, the budget will return to a surplus. They want to close all public school, and force everyone to home school, or better yet have the government give vouchers so all kids can go to Christians schools to learn to be good Americans.

This fantasy world, also include the ideology that is decidedly nativist (trying to be nice hear), and they seem to have an incredibly poor understanding of not only the world outside of the borders of the US (often outside the borders of the county in which they live), and have an almost non-existent grasp of American history, and certainly have no clue about what powers the Constitution grants to government, nor do the seem to understand the rights as enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Now, folks like William Dalton on this blog may take offense to that description, but these people really exist and they claim as much as you do to be part of your Tea Party movement, as such you need to accept that by choosing to group yourselves in with people who are nominally crazy, you paint yourselves as such as well.

Maybe the issue is the the thoughtful libertarian-leaning conservatives simply need to re-brand themselves out of the Tea Party movement, thus leaving that brand to the crazies to avoid the confusion. Frankly, when you say Tea Party I think first and foremost of my nitwit neighbors and (embarrassingly enough) family members who claim the same title to their special brand of nuttiness.

In a poll conducted jointly by prominent Republican and Democratic polltakers, 34 percent of self-identified Tea Party supporters said that Social Security and Medicare should not be cut, no matter what. Another 30 percent of Tea Partyers said that if cuts to Social Security and Medicare were to be considered, lawmakers must also look for other ways to help people better plan for retirement. Another 32 percent of Tea Party supporters said cuts in Social Security and Medicare were necessary.

Responses favoring Social Security and Medicare were higher among most voters of all political persuasions, with 62 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of Republicans saying these programs shouldn’t be touched, no matter what. Overall, half of all voters surveyed supported this position.

Anyone who argues that it is government spending that is the primary driver of health care costs, when we have examples throughout the world of government-run or government-controlled health care systems that deliver better care for less money – and government programs like veteran’s care and Medicare that are more efficient than private health insurance – is lying, deluded, ignorant, or (as I suspect is the case with some of the commentators here) blinded by ideology.

Add in 100 years of scientific study of the psychology of, tactics from buying rising dissidents through false flag operations, and now the distraction of huge amounts of the most incredible information flows/entertainment the world has evern had, and the 0.01% won and most of the 99.99% haven’t yet noticed.

Now the big question is whether computer-aided-surveillance is enough to keep a security state in power, long-term. It is an interesting time.

Working Class: You are exactly right. This is a fight between the large majority of people who want every individual’s rights to be respected and protected equally and the tiny minority who believe that those people who “did build it” should have deference owed to them at the expense of the rest of the population.

Margaret Thatcher wasn’t running around with her own “facts” that didn’t represent reality. She wasn’t stopping women from using birth control. She wasn’t pushing creationism into the classroom. Thatcher was sane.

The problem with the “liberal view of the tea party” is that it’s true. I don’t see Democrat politicians insisting the world is 6000 years old, or that Obama is a secret Muslim, or the Anti Christ. I didn’t see her stripping the welfare state either, she pared it down. But the UK still has socialized healthcare.

The teaparty people, and Republicans keep denying basic facts. As long as they keep doing that they are going to have problems. To have solutions that work in reality, you have to have facts that are based on reality. Such as, 25 million Americans don’t have healthcare insurance, and showing up at the emergency room isn’t working. Contrary to what Mitt said.

Facts still matter. They matter if you want your country to be run, rather then run off a cliff.

And Obama is hardly the most Liberal president ever. That’s so absurd. How about the president who introduced medicare, rather then expanded it? Social security? Again, facts matter. Just making up your own a la Fox News style doesn’t help, it only makes things worse.